When I was a young child, living and
growing up in the streets of downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, I remember my mother taking
me to political meetings. It was a short walk around the corner from where we lived to the
Polish Community Center. Immigrants tended to settle within sections of the big city where
ethnic culture was expressed and celebrated.

People came from all around the
neighborhood and partook in Christmas Parties, workers celebrations and monthly meetings
of the Democratic Party (which at the time was a Party of the working class). In those
early impressionable days, I recall that being part of a broader community of common
working people was important to my parents. These people were the salt of the Earth. They
made the nation run.

My father and mother taught
themselves English and learned to read and write in their adopted language. This came in
quite handy for they were both active union members. My father belonged to the Bakers and
Confectioners Union. My mother was a member of and eventually became a shop steward in a
New York City based clean fill union.

I attended union meetings with my
father. Typically, held in a community pub, I remember the incredible pride he exhibited
when paying his monthly dues. The dues stamps which he carefully affixed in little boxes
on the many pages of his union book testified to the fact.

I recall the seriousness and
importance with which my mother wrote grievance letters for women who, like she, worked on
Wall Street, sweeping offices, vacuuming, emptying the trash, refilling the soap
containers, providing the next days management and executive toilet paper and paper
towels. After all, the bathrooms of stock brokerage offices, banks and other corporate
dens of investment and high profit didnt replenish themselves.

What struck me was the solidarity.
There was a bond between these people that is difficult to describe, yet easy to feel.
This was a time when, at least as far as I could remember, working class people stood
together for the common good. Without great education, they organized, presented their
demands to the bosses and kept a watchful eye lest cause for grievance should arise. They
kept their employers honest. In return, they put in a good hard days work.

Parents

Jan easily worked a twelve to
fourteen hour day. Often, he worked longer. He was quite the loafer. He hoisted two pans
at a time from a large wide rack in a giant revolving oven. A dozen pans spanned its
length. Jan danced from left to right while a coworker shadowed his motions out-of-phase
placing pans of raw dough into the oven filling the vacant spots he created. He did this
for almost thirty years.

My father never got past the 7th
grade. My mother got as far as the 8th grade. Many wouldnt call them educated by
todays standards though Jan spoke eleven languages. He was the chauffeur for General
Wiatr of the Polish Armed Forces in the North African Theater during World War II. As
driver of the staff car, he traveled back and forth from Persia to Morocco. My mother,
Stanislawa, in order to join him, volunteered as a Red Cross nurse in what was then
Palestine. Such accommodation was the privilege of rank and position, my father being a
staff sergeant on good terms with the general.

Often, our family was called
"greenhorns", a derogatory term for foreigners. Perhaps, this is another reason
why the baby boomers immigrant parent generation stayed tightly knit together. There
was safety in working with each other. Their history, with its difficulties and struggles
in the old world, the war and the new world, imbued a togetherness enhancing survival
prospects (a manifestation of people power).

Now that I am a shade away from
being fifty, the worker solidarity common in my youth is all but gone in United States. In
its place, is the illusion of rugged individualism disguising the conformity of a greedy
ethic. It is very evident that drastic changes occurred over the past few decades. Far
fewer people, even those of my own age, can today relate to what I am talking about.

Recent
Incidents

After long brewing tensions, during
a midnight raid on April 8, 1998, 1,400 wharfies were sacked, fired by Patrick Stevedore,
a vast Australian corporation operating maritime terminals, trucks, warehouses, docks,
etc. Wharfies is a term used to describe the unionized workers who load and unload the
containers and other goods carrying packages to and from ships. The entire union workforce
was fired. Patrick hired guards to make certain that none of the workers could get to
work.

Alannah McTiernan, labors
transport secretary said,

If an employer can just come in,
without there being any local dispute at all, and sack all their employees and say: 'we
want to sack you because we're going to replace you with people on workplace agreements',
I mean that has amazing ramifications for every worker in Western Australia. It could
happen in any sector. It could happen in hospitals. The Government could come in and sack
every nurse and say we're not happy with your performance, we're going to sack you and
we're going to replace you with people on workplace agreements. It could happen in the
retail sector, hospitality, and of course in the mining area.

Yes. It could. It did. Often. Not
only in Australia, but in the United States as well.

Past
Incidents

On May 1, 1886, workers in Chicago
went on strike for an 8-hour workday. There was a riot at the McCormick Harvester plant
where one person died. On May 4 (which is also the anniversary of the killing of four
students by national guard troops at Kent State University during an anti-war
demonstration), a protest took place. While the crowd was being dispersed, a bomb went off
killing a policeman and wounding others. Seven policemen died later. As a consequence,
eight men were tried, seven of which were given death sentences. Four of these were put to
death by hanging. Once committed suicide. The remaining sentences were reduced to life
imprisonment and eventually pardoned. I always wear a small red ribbon on May Day in
commemoration of those that died during the Haymarket Riots. On this day, May 1, most of
the world celebrates the International Day of the Worker. The United States, however, does
not.

I highly recommend John Sayles
movie, "Matewan." Matewan is a story of attempted solidarity in a small coal
mining town in West Virginia owned and operated by bosses and henchman. It is 1920. A
pacifist United Mine Workers union organizer brings together local white coal miners,
their African American and immigrant Italian counterparts. The confrontation eventually
leads to a massacre. On May 19, 1920, one of the bloodiest shootouts in American history
takes place. Working people cannot and should not forget Matewan. There were many others
including:

The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill Strike, 1914-1915

The Uprising of 34: The General Textile Strike of
1934

The 1940s Bell Bomber Plant action

Labor and the March on Washington, 1963

The firing of air traffic controllers in the
1980s (more on that later)

Back
Downunder

Scabs are hired to do the work of
the fired Australian maritime union membership. Scab is a term used to describe a worker
to takes the place of a fired union member. Though harsh, it expresses the sentiment well.

The wharfies determined to maintain
solidarity in their struggle launch a successful campaign to prevent any goods from moving
into or out of Patricks facilities. The protests spread. On April 9, unionists in
the International Longshoreman's Union in San Francisco, protest to consular officials in
the Australian Consulate. They then blockade the consulate building. Arrests follow.

The issue of the mass sacking is
taken to court. The Australian government takes the side of Patrick Stevedore. In further
solidarity, the International Transport Workers Federation urge ship owners to divert
their cargoes from Australian ports operated by Patrick Stevedores. Victoria unions
endorse a mass strike for May. This is followed by the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) calling for international solidarity from unions worldwide and alert
their Human and Trade Union Rights Committee to the situation.

Pickets spring up all across the
nation. Picketers are run over by a minibus. Others are maced and injured. Union
solidarity provides workers wages during a period when attempts to cripple Patrick
Stevedore begin to pay off.

On April 11, the following events
take place:

The biggest Netherlands trade union in the
Netherlands calls on the shipping line P&O Nedlloyd not to use Patrick Stevedores.

The International Transport Workers' Federation
announces a "tentative" agreement with the Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping
Company not to use Patrick facilities in Australia.

Unions in Japan, Britain and the United States pledge
to support the MUA.

On April 17, the Executive Board of
Public Services International, calls upon customs officers worldwide to support the
wharfies, that is the Maritime Union of Australia. The United States International
Longshore and Warehouse Union calls on all union members across America to boycott
Australian meat and farm products. In solidarity, the pressure builds. This is followed by
an April 20 injunction against public protest. On April 21, the Federal Court rules that
Patrick must reinstate the wharfies. Not only does the MUA win in court, they win on moral
high ground. Workers empowerment comes from taking advantage of the one thing the bosses
fear most: solidarity.

Oblivious

Except those directly involved, few
in the United States know of the Patrick Stevedore firings, the MUA response and the
victory. I know of only one other individual who is aware of it. He listens to short-wave
radio for his information. Most Americans are oblivious events such as this. The few
professionals with whom I spoke of the incident, seem not care. They sense no solidarity
with the wharfies believing that it could not happen here.

How difficult is it to fire off a
letter or two to the Australian consulate or to send emails supporting the wharfies? It
takes a few minutes, perhaps half-an-hour at most. Not only do most people not know about
large scale international worker actions, few bother to find out. Their oblivion is a
chosen oblivion of self-indulgent non-indulgence. It is an unsolidarity of omission, the
deliberate and active choice to not find out, not care nor get involved.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan
fired thousands of striking PATCO air traffic controllers. They were never rehired. Since
then, there has been an incredible rash of accidents, near misses and delays. Where was
the American worker? Solidarity could have prevented their firing then as it had during
the Patrick Stevedore confrontation. Who knows how many more people would be alive today?
Did we care? Apparently not.

One More Time

At 6:00 a.m., Monday, April 27,
Denmark went on strike. Ten percent of Denmarks population refused to go to work
with a promise of more to follow. While I write this, enormous May Day demonstrations are
being planned. Martin Johansen of the International Socialists states, "It's very
exciting times -- the working class is suddenly coming back onstage."

At 9 P.M., April 27, I searched the
entire New York Times website for information on the Danish workers action. Nothing.
National Public Radio did report on the Morning of the 28th that 500,000 Danes went on
strike. The issues? An 8% wage increase over two years and a five week paid vacation.
Imagine asking for five weeks "paid holiday" in the United States. As of 3 p.m.,
April 29, the New York Times web site still had no information returned when performing a
search on news of the Danish strike. Its obvious the capitalist media would rather
not report upon workers solidarity and their successes.

I cant help imagining what the
workers of this country might accomplish if their solidarity were just a little like that
of my parents, or that of the wharfies or the Danes. I dont expect much worker
solidarity from the United States over Denmark or anything else, though there are hopeful
signs. The recent success of the United Parcel Service (UPS) and the airline pilots strike
come to mind.

Loneliness

Paradoxically, both loneliness and
belonging are part of solidaritys commitment. The is profound loneliness
occasionally evident in people who experience the politics of movement solidarity It
occurs when a worker in solidarity is in the company of people who do not comprehend what
it is. It is a disconnected loneliness from those without a link to anything greater than
themselves. The loneliness fades away when in the company of as little as one other person
who knows what it is.

This loneliness is different from
the pervasive loneliness that ten to thirty percent of the population reports feeling. It
differs from the existential angst of accepting our ultimate aloneness. It is often in the
background as a kind of white noise of continuing and past involvement. Part identity and
part life experience, it is a low level hum reminding us that we are part of a greater
group which looks beyond defining everything in terms of the one or "I". Once
its experienced, it is impossible forget.

Unless one can find a few other
human beings who have shared the collective consciousness of mass activism through
individual action, the world becomes less hospitable. Conversation reduces to pleasantry
and trivia and becomes a poor substitute for dialog. Boredom becomes mundane and the
mundane becomes boring. Fortunately, I believe that more and more people are finding
others in solidarity. Every day, it is becoming more and more common.

Class
Solidarity

A New Democracy flyer entitled,
"Affirmative Action or Class Solidarity", discusses the competitive nature of
affirmative action. New Democracy makes the claim that it is the competitive nature of
scrambling for jobs which places good people, both liberals and conservatives, on
opposites side of the divide. The case is then made that there is no divide. Rather, that
in a spirit of cooperation, in class solidarity, discrimination can be overcome. New
Democracy states,

There is only one
group that the powerful do not want us to identify with - the working class.
The ruling elite know that they can keep groups based on race or gender fighting each
other forever. The elite cannot control a united working class.

The camps within which we place
ourselves through political manipulation are counter-productive. Calling ourselves liberal
or conservative is to see others as the opposition. This is exactly what the powerful
want. The people united in class solidarity can never be defeated.

The real struggle for equality has
always come from the solidarity of working people in their everyday lives.

My parents knew that. Even though
their education level did not allow them to succinctly express their philosophy, their
actions spoke volumes. Often, throughout my twenty-seven year teaching career Ive
felt more in common with the support staff than with the professionals. Professionals have
a tendency to consider themselves somehow a cut above the working class. That too,
however, is an artificial construct in need of getting beyond. Professionals are
labor. Their solidarity is a working class solidarity and as such they, the professionals,
should welcome the solidarity of the working class and help lend a hand. After all, the
too, are pawns in the same corporate takeover of everything.

Labor

There is a unique possibility taking
form in the United States today. The Labor Party is "standing strong" and
organizing. Activists throughout the country are hard at work creating a viable
alternative to the two-party-in-name-only representation of the same capitalist political
institutions.

Two years ago, in 1996, at the Labor
party founding convention, delegates decided not to run political candidates. The goal for
the Labor Party was to "exist in order to build a powerful movement around our new
agenda for working people." While this is still the case, the upcoming Labor Party
convention will revisit the issue. The benefit of the Labor Party however, is the
existence of a working class organization composed of and endorsed by many union members
and unions nationwide under which one can create solidarity. If my parents were alive
today, Im convinced they would join and become involved. Theres nothing
stopping the rest of us.

Quotes

When I rise it will be with the
ranks and not from the ranks.

Eugene V. Debs

Your silence will not protect
you"

Audre Lorde

We must learn to live together as
brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We can move mountains when we're
united and enjoy life --Without unity we are victims. Stay united.

Bill Bailey, 1994

An injury to one is the concern of
all.

Slogan of The Knights of
Labor, circa 1880's

A single bracelet does not jingle.

Congo proverb

The strongest bond of human
sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one of uniting all working people of
all nations, tongues and kindreds.